Spend 'An Evening with Sarah Palin" -- in Charlotte

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will make her first Charlotte appearance June 4 with a red, white and blue dinner with a main-course theme of "America the Greatest Nation."

Organizers say the $300-a-plate dinner, billed as "An Evening with Sarah Palin," could bring 5,000 people to the Charlotte Convention Center.

"It's going to be a night about America," says Eric Jones, director of the Blue Ridge Educational Resource Group. "We're going to talk about what makes America great, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights. She seems to have the heartbeat of a lot of people in our nation right now. We're not seeking to make this a political event. It's just about America."

The next day, Palin -- along with former First Lady Laura Bush -- is scheduled to headline a Blue Ridge-sponsored Women's Expo at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro. About 2,500 women from as far as Michigan and New Jersey are expected for the free event.

Blue Ridge is a year-old non-profit that works to fight drug abuse and teen pregnancy in the Wilkes County area. Jone says the group hopes to build a residential drug rehab center and a home for pregnant teens.

He declined to say how much his group is paying Palin or Bush. "There's nothing free," he says.

A portion of dinner proceeds go to Victory Junction camp in Randleman.

UPDATE 3:18 p.m. The June appearance will actually be Palin's SECOND visit to Charlotte. She's also scheduled to address the NRA annual meeting at the convention center on May 14.

SarahPAC targets South Carolina's Spratt

John Spratt is in Sarah Palin's cross-hairs.

The S.C. Democrat is one of 20 congressmen -- and the only one from the Carolinas -- whose seats Palin's SarahPAC is targeting after Sunday's health care vote.

Spratt, of York, has survived 14 terms in a district that's consistently gone Republican in presidential races. Two years ago he got 62 percent of the vote while John McCain was getting 53 percent.

"We’re paying particular attention to those House members who voted in favor of Obamacare and represent districts that Senator John McCain and I carried during the 2008 election," Palin wrote on a Facebook page with the 20 seats literally targeted on a U.S. map.

SarahPAC could mean an infusion of money to the campaign of Spratt's only declared GOP challenger, state Rep. Mick Mulvaney. Spratt had a 6-1 financial advantage over Mulvaney at the end of December.

In Sunday's health care vote, Spratt found himself in the spotlight and at the microphone as he managed speaking time for Democrats, and introduced Sspeaker Nancy Pelosi.

According to Rock Hill's Herald newspaper, Mulvaney began circulating an e-mail petition minutes after the House approved the health care bill. He asked 5th District voters to "formally reprimand" Spratt by voting against him in November.

Rock Hill author watches Ayers' interview go viral

Much of the recent commentary on 1960s radical William Ayers has included a quote from a 1994 book.

"I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Ayers said at the time.

It was quoted in a Wall Street Journal piece last month by Stanley Kurtz of the National Review and picked up by conservative bloggers as Republicans try to tie Ayers with Democrat Barack Obama. Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists."

The quote about Ayers came from the book "Sixties Radicals" by Rock Hill writer Ron Chepesiuk, a former Fulbright Fellow and Winthrop University faculty member.

Chepesiuk devoted a chapter to the one-time member of the Weather Underground. Its title was "Radical Educator." It talked about how Ayers had gone on to be a prominent educational adviser. He's taken part in programs at the University of South Carolina College of Education.

Chepesiuk, who interviewed Ayers at his home near the University of Chicago, doesn't defend Ayers' violent past, but believes the comments in his book have been taken out of context.

“It sounds like he’s an unrepentant domestic terrorist, that he’s still living the philosophy and mode of action of the '60s," he told me. "He’s left that all behind. He’s still a social radical. But it’s not a question of trying to violently overthrow the system. He’s trying to change the system from within."

Obama and Ayers were both involved in a 1990s education project called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Obama has denied any close association. Critics say he should not have associated at all with the former radical whose group took credit for several bombings.

"We're not talking about him running around with a domestic terrorist," Chepesiuk says. "We're talking about a respectable educator.”

Edwards canceling all appearances

Looks like we won't be hearing from former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for a while.

Edwards has canceled a scheduled Oct. 14 speech at my alma mater, the University of Illinois. He's also canceled appearances at New York's Hofstra University and Salem State College in Massachusetts.

The Illini Union Board, which was going to pay Edwards $65,000 for the speech, posted this statement from Edwards on their Web site:

“I have decided to avoid any public engagements until after the election in November. Nothing is more important than electing Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I don’t want my appearance at these events to be a distraction from the important issues of the election, or from the important purpose of these meetings.”

Edwards' star has fallen since he admitted to an affair with a former campaign worker, an affair first reported by the National Enquirer.

This week Enquirer editor David Perel said the same reporters -- what he called "the Edwards team" -- was in Alaska looking into members of Gov. Sarah Palin's family.